Newspapers can and should find ways to charge for online content if they are to safeguard the future of quality journalism, the Financial Times chief executive, John Ridding, has said.

Stoking the debate over paid news content and the survival of newspapers, Ridding said newspapers need to abandon a "free is good" doctrine, work out what sets them apart and how they can charge for it, whether it be sports coverage or columnists. If they do not, revenues will continue to suffer.

"One of the worries for the industry in general is kind of a cultural expectation that news information should be free and we would challenge that because we believe quality journalism requires investment and investment requires revenues."

Ridding, whose own newspaper group works on a subscription model, argues that the debate over paying for content has been unfairly polarised into specialised news at one end versus more general content at the other. He accepts that the FT's strategy of being "special and different" has made it easier for the paper to charge readers. But most publishers can find special content within their walls.

"It is definitely more difficult for more general publishers [to charge] but often I feel there's a more fatalistic response, saying 'It's not possible'," he said.

"I don't think it's a binary, black and white thing. All publishers should be thinking about what makes them different. Even their own brands give them a personality and identity which in many cases they have been building for centuries. All publishers need to be looking at what they specialise in."

Ridding stressed there was no "one-size-fits-all" approach to success online and said the FT saw micropayments as a potential addition to its current subscription model. And some content could be free.

FT luxury magazine How to Spend It will launch online this weekend, but there will be no charge while it builds critical mass.

But in general, Ridding is convinced readers are willing to pay for content. "It's not an easy set of decisions and calculations over how much to charge and what to charge for ... But publishers need to have confidence in the quality of what they produce. They don't have to have a doctrinal approach that all content has to be free."

The calculation publishers need to make is: "Do you gain more in revenue than you lose in readership?"

Ridding conceded that the current market is "very brutal". Indeed, this summer's first-half results from FT Publishing, the Pearson division that contains the Financial Times, showed a 40% slump in profits.

With several "fantastic brands" in the US having gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over the past year, the former journalist is very worried indeed about where standards are going.

"Clearly we have to be worried about quality journalism," he said. "Journalism is a craft, it's a skill, it requires training, it requires investment."